Michael Kanellos’ blog over at News.com asks a question on many minds these days: What’s going on with EEStor? Kanellos says he’s attempted to contact the company several times for an update but with no luck. “The facilities, though, are supposed to be state-of-the-art,” writes Kanellos. “The place looks like a lab set up by DARPA, I’m told. That’s where a lot of the money from Kleiner, Perkins apparently is going.”

I spoke last month with Ian Clifford, CEO of Toronto-based ZENN Motors (which has a 4 per cent investment in EEStor and a technology licensing agreement). He said EEStor is “still bullish” about being on target with its development. “They’ve got their nose to the grindstone, working to get permeativity testing completed. Then, I guess, they’ll do their announcement.”

Apparently Kleiners is still actively involved and invested. Beyond that, nothing much to report. Still no EEStor Web site. No releases. Quiet, quiet, quiet. A good sign? A bad sign? Who knows?

The link to my original Toronto Star article on EEStor back in March 2006 has expired, but you can find a copy of it here. Here’s a link to an update on EEStor that I did for Technology Review back in January of this year.

Ottawa-based Group IV Semiconductor, the company trying to make a superior solid-state light bulb, has secured another round of funding — enough to finance it to the end of its three-year product development plan. Khosla Ventures and BDC Venture Capital provided additional financing in this round, on top of new funding from Garage Technology Ventures Canada (i.e. the first international affiliate of Guy Kawasaki’s firm) and Applied Ventures LLC (a subsidiary of Applied Materials Inc.). “Things are moving along on schedule,” Group IV president and CEO Stephen Naor told me in an interview. “We’ve made a lot of progress over the summer. We now have a very high confidence that we can scale our technology to get to the product performance parameters we need, and that we’ll do it on time.”

Naor said he couldn’t disclose the size of this latest investment, but the company’s press release described it as a “substantial” round. I got the impression it was at least higher than $10 million, but I imagine Khosla and Garage want to keep the exact amounts quiet.

Group IV’s solid-state lights are based on a single AC-powered, silicon-based chip. Silicon is cheaper than the materials used in conventional LED products, and Group IV’s manufacturing process is expected to dramatically reduce the cost of the light technology relative to LEDs. Its goal is to commercialize a long-lasting and high-quality lighting technology that is comparable to LEDs, competitively priced with compact fluorescent lights (in the range of $3 to $4 per bulb), but mercury-free and dimmable. Naor said the company has two years left in its three-year product development plan.

He said the involvement of Applied Materials will be key. In fact, it’s huge. The company is the largest silicon-processing equipment provider in the United States, with $9 billion in annaul revenues, and is expected to help Group IV develop a low-cost manufacturing process for its product. “They’re very interested in solid-state lighting,” said Naor. “Our intention and their intention is to collaborate to ensure that development is done in a way that minimizes manufacturing costs.”

For past posts and stories on Group IV click here, here and here.